Coffee, Mismatched Socks, and Red Wine Poetry
by K0USAGI
Summary: (Lacewoodshipping) Glimpses of poetry, socks, a kitchenette, and coffee.


Serena had made herself right at home in Augustine's flat, learning the wherabouts of every little necessity within the first few nights. It was far more endearing than when Dexio slithered in after late-night break-ups with Sina every other month. When Serena settled in, it felt as though she'd always been there with him. It didn't take long for him to become all too accustomed to falling asleep with her in his arms, wearing only his shirt that was many sizes too big for her petite frame.

Sleep would sneak up on him, holding her like some desperate posession, nose buried in her honey tresses and drunk on the cocktail scent of her favorite shampoo and his conditioner. She had made a habit of reading one poem every night from a book out of his library—often times she found old favorites he'd forgotten he had.

Most mornings she was up long before he was. That had surprised him in their first weeks. She had always rambled about how late she slept in. Eight in the morning was hardly sleeping in late. In fact, eight in the morning was the start of his routines until she'd come into his life—staying in their sheets with her body curled against his, he found he could sleep well into the afternoon on lazy weekends followed by late evenings. Simply caressing her skin and listening to her breaths, his day was incomparable to any lonesome one before. Coaxing her back to sleep with kisses, touches and sleepy pleas was far too pleasurable a pasttime for it's deceptively innocent nature.

Augustine often woke to an empty imprint of her form beside him, still warm from her body. But he took small pleasure in hearing her humming to herself from the kitchen or the lounge, probably making herself coffee or thumbing through one of his many textbooks and leisurely reads. If there was one thing he adored in the girl, it was that she ate up everything he loved to read with the same fervor as he. It wouldn't be long before she was caught up entirely on the works of Baudelaire and Pushkin—at her rate, they would soon be diving into new reads together.

_"Je sais combien il faut, sur la colline en flamme,_  
_De peine, de sueur et de soleil cuisant_  
_Pour engendrer ma vie et pour me donner l'âme;_  
_Mais je ne serai point ingrat ni malfaisant,"_

He repeats to himself, the verses she'd read aloud the night before. His arm had been strewn cautiously over the curve of her waist, tempted by the crescent sliver of pink flesh beneath a purple blouse she'd stolen as a sleeping garment. She read aloud, her accent more fluid and melodic with each reading. Her lips caught his gaze as she read under the lamplight, cheek soft against the pillow. Her lashes shone gold over silver eyes scanning and devouring each word, once so foreign to her.

_"Car j'éprouve une joie immense quand je tombe_  
_Dans le gosier d'un homme usé par ses travaux,"_

Her tongue still tripped over some words, though they flowed like humble streams in her mind. She no longer paused, but merely breathed and let her intuition and distant memories form each sound. Augustine's fingertips traversed the curve of her shoulder, mesmerized all the way down past the crook of her elbow to the bony jut of her ulna before her palm.

_"I spoke it as a child… somewhere along the way I must have forgotten. I guess it was after my dad passed away,"_ She had once said on a sunny morning—she'd been pouring coffee into a round, black mug. He'd noticed her slender, long fingers then, curved around the handle.

Moving on through _L'Ame du Vin_, she turned the page. Augustine's attentions had slipped from her precious hands to the teasing glimpse of her bright orange panties. A hidden sight of soft lace between that wine-violet blouse and a heavy layer of black, down comforter. Her hipbone made an angle there, too, not unlike the tiny plateau of her wrist.

_"Et sa chaude poitrine est une douce tombe  
Où je me plais bien mieux que dans mes froids caveaux."_

Was it shyness or some attempt at politeness that kept him from chasing what little glimpses of her body he could steal? Augustine sucked in a breath of her lilac-scented hair and staved off the craving inside of him. Any further his explorations and he would forget and disrespect her chosen poem entirely. He fended off lustful thoughts with her voice, just as he'd done every night he'd shared his bed with her thus far.

Serena knew his thoughts, so far from naive she truly was.

_"Entends-tu retentir les refrains des dimanches,"_ came her steady voice as she curved her body against his. She stretched her legs sleepily, her hips making a coquettish bump into every nerve she'd spent the evening setting aflame.

_"Et… l'espoir qui gazo…uille en mon sein palpitant?"_

Perhaps he looked forward to those mornings after long nights that proved scalding even in the peak of January. At least then he could say he'd made it through the night, feverishly in love and lived to tell about it.

Sunday morning, just like the last, he woke to her thumbed and bruised copy of_ Fleurs de Mal_ and heard her humming over a stream of coffee flowing into that big black mug. He squeezed his eyes shut—_angled hip, golden eyelashes, steam rising from black coffee as potent as wine_—he craved her body and her scent, rolling lazily onto her side of the bed with the smile of a young, drunk lover. _Petal-soft skin, clumsy, innocent trips over alveolar trills_—he pulled a warm robe on as he stood to be chilled by morning air—_messy blonde braids that had come out in the night swinging behind her waiflike frame_.

He spied her in the kitchen, her socks mismatched and those lacy, orange _culottes_ finally revealed to him (oh, how new they were!) Serena had made a habit of walking around in his blouses when she could—but she would just as easily toss it aside and walk about his flat topless if it proved too cumbersome. Cumbersome for certain tasks such as climbing up on the counter to reach a topmost cubby that was two feet too high for her. Augustine tucked his hands into his robe pocket, stifling a laugh as he watched her from his clandestine perch in the doorway. She was seventeen, surely, but often moved with the mannerisms of a small girl at times. From a slight waddle to her playful step to how cautiously she balanced herself on her knees to reach for the creamer he'd so cruelly left on the top shelf.

_Les coudes sur la table et retroussant tes manches,_  
_Tu me glorifieras et tu seras content;_

Heavens, her _derrière_ was criminal in that orange lace. Her loose braid was thick and unwoven. At such a cruel angle, it obscured the view of the soft mounds on her chest, exposed to morning air. She made a quiet grunt under her breath as she reached up once more, desperate for sweets. In his thoughts, Augustine cheered her on, but was far too amused and entranced by her efforts to make his presence known. His hands tucked far into his pockets only dug deeper as she stirred that lascivious ache.

Another long, slender stretch of her limbs and her fingertips brushed the coffee creamer. She nudged it once, then twice.

_J'allumerai les yeux de ta femme ravie;_  
_À ton fils je rendrai sa force et ses couleurs_

She was determined, desperate, lips tightened in a straight line. Augustine could make out the form of her lithe muscles in long thighs, rising from the back of the knee to the round of her hips. The needy twist of her torso for that out-of-reach necessity she craved sent a gentle chill through his nerves.

_Et serai pour ce frêle athlète de la vie_  
_L'huile qui raffermit les muscles des lutteurs._

Finally it came tumbling down off the edge of it's cubby. For a split second his amusement faded and he would have surely sprinted to catch her should she tumble. But her free hand lunged upward, reflex like no other, and caught the little glass container just as the other steadied her body against a wall. He heard an uncertain little whimper escape her for but a hair's breadth of a second. Serena's fear was gone before it could settle. Spark reignited, she hopped down cautiously from the countertop and deposited her find in the big black mug with a pleased smile.

Augustine was inclined to greet her with congratulation. Yet he could not will himself to rustle the proverbial dew from a fragile leaf. Perhaps it was the wonder of that brief moment he'd spied. When she returned to humming, he opted to slip away back toward his room, his bath, the heat of water to lose himself to a craved touch and recollected moments of her.

_En toi je tomberai, végétale ambroisie,_  
_Grain précieux jeté par l'éternel Semeur,_  
_Pour que de notre amour naisse la poésie_  
_Qui jaillira vers Dieu comme une rare fleur!_


End file.
